Monday, January 6, 2014

2013 was a damn good year
for horror, and don’t let anyone tell you differently. Sure there as some real crap out in
theaters, but this was probably the best year for major theatrical release
horror we’ve had since I started the blog.
Of course, the indie scene gave us more than enough killer flicks to
make 2013 a cause to celebrate. I think it's only fair to recognize a few of those that brought me so much enjoyment. Now, on to the first annual Son of
Celluloid Year End Awards.

Best
Non-Horror Flick – The World’s EndThe end of the
Cornetto Trilogy has taken on horror and action, so they decided to go out on a
sci-fi note The flick definitely
delivered the laughs albeit in a more mature way than Shaun or Fuzz. This one hit a little close to home, but it
was a blast. The World’s End is
everything you hoped it would be.

Runner Up: The
Wolf Of Wall Street

Best Actor –
Mike Nall as Charles Lake in I Am No OneDirector Jason
Hoover tells me that Mike isn’t an actor by trade. "He's
just a dude that was willing to go to the edge with me.” This character immersion technique worked
like a charm though, ‘cause he’s genuinely scary. He’s perfected that chilling “is he really calm or is he just coiled
to strike?” delivery. The finale of I
Am No One is the best single scene from any indie flick this year.

Best
Actress – Rosie Day as Angel in The Seasoning HouseAt only
19, Rosie shows the acting chops of a seasoned professional. See what I did
there? Anyway, she burst onto the horror scene this year with an incredible pantomime
performance as a deaf/mute girl forced to work in a sex-slave whorehouse. She might just have the most expressive eyes
I’ve ever seen. Rosie has everything it
takes to be a horror star.

Best
Monster Design – Frankenstein’s ArmyWhether
or not you dug this flick (and I can’t see how you couldn’t), you can’t deny
that those mechanical zombie bastards are some cool ass monsters. Finally someone found a way to incorporate
steampunk into horror and it not suck.

Runners
Up: Beatress (American Mary), Bad Milo (Bad Milo)

Funniest
Scene – “Put ‘em on the glass” – The Battery

Poor
Mickey is trapped in the car during a zombie attack, but as the busty zombie
presses against the window, he can’t help but do what comes natural.

Runner
Up: “Wire catches arrow” (You’re Next)

Best Quote
– “I want you to f**k me on this bed next to your dead mother.” – Wendy Glenn in You’re Next

Kinky. I like it.

Runner
Up: “Can I stab her anywhere?” – Sasha Gray in Would You Rather

Best Kiss
– Kiss of the DamnedAs a child of the MTV era, I believe that this has to be a category in any movie awards. Anyway, I seem to
be the only person who was highly disappointed with this flick, but there were
a couple of cool shots and a kiss through the space of a chain locked door was
my favorite.

Runner
Up: “Wait ‘til Dad finds out” – We Are What We Are, Various girl on gorl
makeouts – Embrace of the Vampire

Best Sex
Scene – Here Comes The Devil

Felix
lets his fingers do the walking as he and Sol breathily discuss their early
sexual experiences in the car. I ain’t
gonna lie, that scene is hot as hell.

Runner
Up: Emasculating a douchebag (Alyce)

Best Nude
Scene – Riki Lindhome in Hell Baby

There was
some great onscreen nudity this year that went for the sexy, but my favorite
scene went for the laughs. Riki stands
there naked for a good 3 minutes chit chatting and making her brother in law
very uncomfortable in a hilarious scene.
I’d commend her for having the balls to do it, but, well…

Best
Performance By A Madagascar Hissing Cockroach – All Hallow’s EveYou
should know that when a clown hands you flowers, there’s gonna be a surprise
inside. In this case, it was one of
these little guys. It’s always nice to
see maddies in a flick. Hopefully some
of my babies will make it to the silver screen.

Runner
Up: Dracula 3D

Best
DVD/Blu-ray release – The Vincent Price Collection (Shout Factory)It’s nice
to have the master’s work in hi-def, but the real selling point here is the
extras. Vintage intros and interviews
team up with copious commentaries to make this the definitive versions of six
Price classics.

Runner
Up: Crystal Lake Memories (1428 Films)

Potential
Icon Award – Art the Clown (All Hallow’s Eve)Coulrophobia
is common, so this creepy clown could absolutely bring nightmares to the
masses. Whether it's more
anthologies or a feature, he needs to come back. I can see him on tshirts and being cosplayed (I hate
that word) at horror cons.

Runner Up
– Bad Milo (Bad Milo), Animal Mask Killers (You’re Next)

Best
Soundtrack – Cool As HellI think
it’s safe to say that a James Balsamo movie is going to win in this category
every year he makes one. The theme song
by the almighty Bloodsucking Zombies From Outer Space would clinch the win by
itself, but the movie also features tunes by The Other, Nightmare Sonata, Order
of the Fly, and Calabrese to name just a few.
The man has great taste in music.

Runners
Up: Lords Of Salem, The Battery

And the
big one, the most important award of the year…

Best
Kill/Death Scene – Chainsaw Facef**k – Evil DeadIf that
isn’t already a Cannibal Corpse song title, they need to get right on
that. Evil Dead was a divisive movie
among horror fans. In fact, it seemed
to split them right down the middle, just like a chainsaw would a deadite’s
head. The glorious splatterfest had a
bevy of great kills, but this long, loving bisection (complete with a nod to
Ash and a roaring fire in the background) got the theater cheering and
applauding more than any other at the screening I went to. Rarely have I seen my favorite power tool
put to such good, and messy, use. The
saw is family.

Runners Up: Knife
through the cheek – The Seasoning House, Herschel’s Last Grin – The Walking
Dead, Eyeball and Genital Mutilation – Play Me, Face Off – Maniac, Family
Dinner – We Are What We Are, Nut Cracker – I Spit On Your Grave 2

Ok, one more thing before we lay 2013 to rest. Recently I read a couple of reviewers (the kind that get off on ripping
stuff to shreds) say that they had a hard time even finding 10 good horror
flicks from the last year to make a “best of” list. I‘m calling bullshit. On
facebook I said that I could easily name 20 flicks I would recommend. Well, I’ve decided that I can go one
better. You’ve already read my top 10
(HERE and HERE if you’ve been slacking), so here’s a list of 20 on top of
that. That’s 30 flicks from 2013 that I
wholeheartedly recommend. Take that you
“I hate everything” jackasses. Here we
go…

Frankenstein’s Army – A
found footage WWII flick? Yep, and it’s
fun as hell. The last half is like
running through a haunted attraction.

Evil Dead – Put your
remake hate away for a minute and just enjoy the gory fun. Blood, blood, and more blood!

Lords of Salem – Rob
Zombie’s hallucinatory nightmare divided viewers, but if you just give in and
go for the ride, I think you’ll dig it.
It even gets better with repeated viewings.

I Am No One – If you mixed the mechanics of Man Bites Dog with the
atmosphere of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, the result would be I Am No
One.

Curse of
Chucky – I know it’s heresy, but this just might be my favorite non-comedy
Chucky flick. Why this one didn’t hit
theaters is beyond me.

American Mary
- The Soska Sisters come out swinging
with their sophomore effort. It’s
visually stunning and features a great performance from Katherine
Isabelle.

100 Bloody
Acres – Keeping Australia on the genre film map with a great horror comedy.

Gut – Killer
indie flick with a great creep factor.
A man is getting snuff films in the mail… and starts recognizing the
victims.

Sightseers –
Well written and well acted pitch black comedy from England. When she agreed to go on a holiday with him,
she didn’t know he was a killer.

Contracted – A
sexual encounter at a party leaves a young woman with a bizarre disease. Nasty infection horror. Good stuff… just ignore the last two
minutes.

Alyce – What
would you do if your victim turned out to not be dead after all? A nice descent into madness. Most of my horror chick friends really dug
this one.

You’re Next –
A lot of people touted the suspense.
Personally, I think it was one of the best comedies of the year.

Dead Woman’s
Hollow – Atmospheric backwoods/small town horror with some great performances
and a killer finale.

Cool As Hell –
The prolific James Balsamo brings his usual gory, irreverent, cameo packed
madness to this horror comedy.
Troma-esque in a good way.

The Collective
Vol. 6 – Another great collection of themed shorts from Jabb Pictures featuring
a short version of “I Am No One” and Brian Williams’ fantastic ‘Play Me.” What scares the people who scare us?

Stoker –
Creepy thriller from the director who brought you Oldboy and Thirst. Need I say more?

Grabbers –
Giant octopus monsters are attacking an Irish island and the only way to
survive is to get wasted. Hilarity
ensues.

Hell Baby -
Comedy from the minds behind Reno 911 about the birth of the
Antichrist. Way better than it had any
right to be.

No One Lives –
Refreshingly old school. Dumb dialogue,
but very little shaky cam, plenty
of blood, a couple of nice twists, some creative violence, and even a little
gratuitous nudity.

See? A whole bunch of goodness for you to check
out. Now, on to 2014...

Friday, January 3, 2014

STOP! If you missed
the first half of the countdown, go check it out HERE.

Before we get to the list, I have to address one thing. My favorite movie I saw this year is not on
this list. I went back and forth over
whether or not to include it, but in the end I decided that it wouldn’t really
be fair. In other words, everything is true. God’s an astronaut, Oz
is over the rainbow, and Nightbreed: The Cabal Cut is far and away the best horror
flick of 2013. Russell Cherrington did
a beautiful job taking the available materials and crafting something that is
familiar to fans but offers an entirely new cinematic experience. You can read MY REVIEW for more
details. I believe that once Scream
Factory releases the restored version later this year, Nightbreed will no
longer be considered just a cult classic, but one of the most visionary and
epic horror films ever made. The
problem is, while it can be argued that it is a different movie, it is not a
completely new movie and I felt that giving it the top spot wouldn’t be fair to
the new horror of 2013. Now that we’ve
got that out of the way, on with the countdown…

5 – We Are What We Are

All of our families have quirks. Secrets and traditions that would seem bizarre and even insane to
the outside world, but seem normal to us because it’s all we’ve ever
known. Possibly the deepest seeded of
these are based in faith. There are few more profound formative experiences
than when someone who has been raised in a strict religious household discovers
a schism between what they believe and what they’ve been told to believe. This is the internal struggle at the heart
of this tale of a mountain cannibal family, and man is it powerful. Amid the slow build tension and well-timed
moments of brutal bloodletting is a fascinating familial character study. As well paced as the flick is, it wouldn’t
have worked nearly as well without the superb acting. Bill Sage is effective as the domineering yet sincere father and
Julia Gardner does well as the younger sister, but the real stunner is Ambyr
Childers (who kinda reminds me of a young Patricia Arquette) as Rose. Her performance as a girl trapped between
family loyalty and a desire to be “normal” and find her own identity is
perfectly layered and incredibly real.
This is smart, atmospheric, thought provoking horror that will stick
with you.

4 – Would You Rather

An eccentric millionaire invites a bunch of broke hard luck
cases to play a high stakes, sadistic game of “would you rather” for a chance
at a new lease on life. It’s a simple
premise for a simple movie that’s simply awesome. Most of the proceedings take place in a single room, giving it
the feeling of a Grand Guignol theatre piece with the ensemble cast led by the
legendary Jeffrey Combs. I’ll watch him
in anything, and he was particularly good here. Some reviewers took the “pain game” motif and Combs’ occasional
moralizing as an excuse to compare this to Saw (which it has no real similarity
to) and trot out that tired, meaningless phrase “torture porn.” If you are one of these reviewers, please
find some other form of entertainment to write about because your understanding
of horror is woefully lacking. There is
a streak of black humor running through this that keeps things fairly light
outside of the most grisly moments.
Half of the fun comes from choosing which character you would be in the
game. Are you the “good guy who
sacrifices himself” or the “better you than me” guy? Maybe you’re the “I’m gonna enjoy this” greedy bitch. Whether you read this one as an indictment
of how easily people are bought in today’s culture (the “game” is a very small
step from something one might see on reality TV) or just some sick kicks with
one of horror’s most beloved actors, Would You Rather definitely deserves a lot
more praise than it got.

3 – Antiviral

With his first feature, Brandon Cronenberg made the kind of
flick that I wish his father still did.
Antiviral is a potent mix of bleak as hell body horror, sci-fi, and
social commentary. Anyone who says that
they are completely comfortable with doctors and medical procedures is lying to
you, and Cronenberg wields this universal fear with surgical precision. Visually, the film is set in a clinical
nightmare, all white tile and red smears.
It’s a perfect backdrop for our protagonist, played brilliantly by Caleb
Landry Jones (in what, if there is any justice in the film industry, will be a
star making role), sell injections, shoot up the diseases of the stars, and
puke a little blood in. The story may
have a languid pace and occasionally lose focus, but the world that Cronenberg
has constructed is fascinating enough to keep the viewer riveted. It feels vaguely futuristic with its bizarre
machinery, yet chillingly familiar in a “I can absolutely see society’s
celebrity worship going this direction, and soon” way. Brandon shows a lot of style, some great
ideas, and a deft hand behind the camera.
Antiviral has me looking forward to what he has in store for us.

2 – Found

Throughout December I agonized over my top 10 list as I always
do. Finally, I had it all figured
out. Then I saw Found at the last
minute and had to completely rearrange everything. This coming of age tale of a bullied, horror obsessed kid and his
serial killer brother absolutely blew my mind.
The last time I saw a movie successfully put this kind of raw emotion on
screen was Aronofsky’s The Wrestler.
The last time I saw it achieved in a horror movie was, um… probably
never. Don’t let all of this talk about
the emotionally affecting story give you the wrong idea though. There’s hardcore depraved violence too. It’s like coupling chocolate and cayenne to
make both flavors more intense through the contrast and interplay. One moment you’re feeling the pain of a kid
losing a friend and the next someone is eating an eyeball. What enables Found to get under your skin so
easily is just how well drawn the characters are. No one is a cliché and everyone is a shade of gray. From the killer animated credits sequence to
the final shot of the film (which is probably my favorite single horror moment
of the year), Found has that perfect mixture of heart, guts, and balls that
only the best horror cinema achieves.
After making the festival rounds throughout 2013, I sincerely hope that
the flick gets a proper release because EVERYONE needs to see this one.

1 – The Seasoning House

When is an exploitation flick not just an exploitation
flick? When it’s a true work of art,
that’s when. The Seasoning House takes
the old rape-revenge tropes, puts a twist on them, and tells the story so
engagingly that it doesn’t feel sleazy and you don’t even miss the sleaze. Angel, a young deaf/mute girl, is orphaned,
taken captive, and sold to a slave brothel by the military somewhere in the
Balkans. Due to a birthmark (and the
pimp’s affinity for her), she is spared “bed duty” and given the job of keeping
the stock made up and doped up. When
she befriends a new arrival only to see her murdered by the very soldiers that
took her, revenge and survival become violent necessities.

The way the camera work and set design play off of each
other is outstanding. The
cinematography takes a grungy whorehouse and turns it into hell on earth. Long tracking shots, often from Angel’s
vantage point, make the halls seem like endless corridors of torturous
hopelessness. Similarly, the way the
crawlspaces and heating ducts she inhabits are shot make them seem like a vast,
subterranean world. The violence is
brutal. The rape scenes are ugly and
impactful. When it’s time to spill some
blood, the gore effects look great. The
script is tight, clever, logical, and well paced. With its relentlessly grim atmosphere and gut-wrenching plunge
into the darkness of humanity, the temptation to go over the top had to have
been great. Luckily, just the right
amount of restraint is used. For
example, when a little girl has to contend with a group of professional
soldiers it could easily have devolved into “hardcore Home Alone”
territory. It is written intelligently
enough, however, that the action is believable.

The other thing that really makes this flick is the
extraordinary acting. Our pair of
villains is top notch. If you’re a
genre cinema fan, or a cinema fan in general, I don’t need to sing Sean
Pertwee’s praises to you. Kevin
Howarth, who plays the brooding scumbag that runs the house, shows a true
understanding of acting with an eye towards the bigger picture. The scenes he shared with Pertwee could have
easily devolved into the two actors trying to “out evil” each other. We’ve seen it a million times. Howarth knows when to cower a little though,
making “big bad” that much more menacing.
It’s akin to a great pro wrestler knowing when to get his licks in but
knowing when to take a beating and let the other guy shine for the sake of the
story. The real breakout star is Rosie
Day. I had never seen her before (she’s
mainly been on British TV), but she put in the best performance by any actress
in a genre flick this year. Her ability
to combine the broken resignation of someone forced to do horrible things to
survive with the innocence and sweetness of a child is heartbreaking. It’s even more impressive considering she
doesn’t say a word the entire time.
Portraying a complex character through pantomime is quite a feat, and
she nails it.

All in all, this flick is a grimy, nasty, and exhilarating
ride to hell and back. Aside from the
unnecessary use of new-school camera tricks during a chase scene, it’s damn
near flawless. First time director and
long time makeup effects bad ass Paul Hyett has crafted a visceral masterpiece
that grabs you by the throat and refuses to let go until it decides that it’s
done with you. The Seasoning House
carries my highest possible recommendation.

We Are What We Are, Would You Rather, and Antiviral are
available wherever DVDs and Blu-rays are sold.

Found is available HERE, but quantities are limited, so
hurry the hell up.

The Seasoning House is available from your friendly neighborhood online retailer.